


Chungus's One-Shots

by ResplendentChungus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, One Shot Collection, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Poetry, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ResplendentChungus/pseuds/ResplendentChungus
Summary: I've got some original one-shots, poetry, that sort of stuff that I haven't put anywhere, so I figured I'd make a place to put em.1 - Travel Log 3710 (One-shot); After ten years of searching, a lonely explorer admits that there is no alien life for him to find.2 - The Gods of Yore (Poetry); I remember the gods of yore.3 -  Apocalypse Maybe (One-shot); When you think about it, is the zombie apocalypse really that bad?
Kudos: 1





	1. Travel Log 3710

After traveling the cosmos for ten long years, holding out hope that today would be the day we found extraterrestrial life, losing crewmate after crewmate to the ceaseless grind of space travel, I can safely say that we humans are all alone in the universe.

The UNS _Pilgrim_ was not the first spaceship to be dispatched into the unknown to find alien life, but it was the last. Command had been very clear that costs were rising and returns were becoming non-existent, so the entire discovery program would be shut down unless we made a serious discovery. Truth be told, it was why I had signed on; I had always been reluctant to leave earth behind for long periods of time, but I knew this was the last chance to find other forms of life, to see things no human had seen before, to learn of things we didn’t even know we were missing. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I stood behind and did nothing.

Ten years later, all I’ve learned is that space is empty and space is unforgiving and given enough time, space will take _everything_ from you. It took ten years to kill all of my crewmates, in freak accidents and malfunctions with a 0.1% chance of happening to begin with.

But that’s the thing about space, it doesn’t care how careful you are or how many preparations you make, it’ll get you eventually. You can flip ten coins or you can flip ten-thousand, sooner or later they’ll all come up tails. It’s only a matter of time.

It’s only a matter of time

So here I am, seven light-years removed from Earth, ten years removed from what little home I had, two and a half days removed from the moment I lost my final crewmate. Drifting through the darkness in a worn-down spaceship with no hope of ever making it back to earth, much less discovering the extraterrestrial life my crewmates died for. The FTL drive is busted beyond repair and Jol- our engineer never finished teaching us how to repair it. The solar batteries are too worn down to use, food won’t grow and I don’t know why, there’s only a few gallons of water left, and the _Pilgrim_ is almost out of fuel.

It probably wasn’t good for my head, but I ran the math. I have almost a week until I run out of water. If I managed to deal with that and get more, that would buy me another few weeks before I run out of food. And if I got _all that_ working, I would still only have a few months before the _Pilgrim_ runs out of fuel and I’m officially stranded in space with no life support.

I could probably fix most of it. I could fix the hydrator, get the greenhouse running again, maybe even get the solar batteries in working order. It would buy me a couple months of survival, maybe more, and I could use that to get the ship back in working order.

But I won’t. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. I signed up for this mission so I could find life on other planets, and I’ve spent the past ten years finding out that no matter how smart or how prepared or even how goddam _lucky_ we were, the mission was always going to be a failure.

Because we are alone in the universe.

“Travel log 3710,” I say into my recorder as I float above my bed, my voice rusty from lack of use, “this will be my final message. I am the only remaining member of the UNS _Pilgrim_ , and our mission is…” I pause, trying to force the words out of my throat. “Our mission is a failure. We have traveled light-years away from Earth, we have scoured every planet we found, and my final conclusion is that humans are the only life in the universe.

“There are no great civilizations for us to discover. There are no wonderful new species to meet. There is no technology beyond what we could ever imagine. We-” My voice cracks and I blink away tears. It’s been a long time since I’ve cried. “We are alone.” My chest feels as empty as the cold void of space surrounding me. “We are the only intelligent life in the galaxy, Earth is the only source of life in the universe. The universe is unthinkably large and _we are alone in it_.”

For a few seconds I say nothing, simply wiping my face and getting my breathing under control.

“This is… this is Sylvester Page, logging out for the final time. Goodbye.”

It feels like a dream as I let the recorder float away and pull myself towards the bottom of the ship, floating through the zero-gravity I’ve come to find normal. Years ago, there would have been a voice in my head urging me to do everything in my power to repair the FTL drive, to turn around and go back home. But that voice is dead. Even _if_ I managed to repair the FTL drive, it would take six years of faster-than-light travel to reach earth. Six years for something, _anything_ on this crumbling wreck-to-be of a ship to go wrong and get me killed. Now, I can’t find it in myself to care. To care if I die out here, cold and alone, my body never to be found. I’m not anything like the man I once was, so willing to sacrifice everything for this mission. Now I’m just tired.

I’m so, so tired.

There’s a planet hovering a few dozen kilometers ahead of us and I have half a mind to crash us into it, give the _Pilgrim_ the end it deserves. I can’t, though. Some poor soul might find this, in a few hundred years or so. They may even learn a valuable lesson from us; to turn around and go home if they value their lives.

So instead I decide to take our manual probe, the last one left. One of the devices we would use to go down to nearby planets and investigate their surfaces.

It’s all a blur, getting into the pod and setting my coordinates. I feel weightless in a way that has nothing to do with gravity. Finally, I’m free. My mission is done. It’s over. No more dragging myself out of bed, no more endless ship maintenance, no more trying to forget the faces of all the people I’ve loved and lost.

I let myself sob for the first time in years as my pod hurls toward the planet, towards oblivion. Around me is nothing but empty darkness broken up only by the far-away stars. The constant mechanical ambiance of the _Pilgrim_ is gone, replaced by the dull humm of the escape pod’s thrusters. I close my eyes and let the tears flow unabated as the void takes me.

It’s finally, finally over.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


But it’s not.

Because I wake up and I’m still alive.

Because I crawl out of my pod with no suit.

Because despite all reason, I’m not dead yet.

Because when I crawl out of my pod, alive and breathing with no external help, there’s a group of long-legged bipedal creatures holding glowing objects staring at me and they say something I don’t understand but _they say something and they’re moving and I can barely breath._

Because for the first time in years, hope fills my chest as I realize;

I was wrong. Our mission was not in vain.

We are not alone.

_We are not alone!_


	2. The Gods Of Yore

I remember the gods of yore,

Shining smiles of blood and gore,

Swords held high,

As we screamed to the sky,

But now, they are no more.

The gods of yore were cruel as they come,

Craved murder and violence, the deeds of scum,

And yet we gave in,

Much to our chagrin,

Brought so much death we went numb.

These gods of metal and fire and blood,

Saw millions die in towns and in mud,

Of whips and sabers

And soldiers and slavers,

They nipped hope and peace in the bud.

They watched as we laboured and conquered and died,

Greed and hunger on every side,

For glory and land,

We were theirs to command,

They wedded us, war was our bride.

These gods laughed as we brought disease west,

With our horrible deeds they were surely impressed,

Civilizations

And whole populations,

Were extinguished to fulfil our quest.

The gods of yore are dead to us now,

As the new age arrived, they were forced to bow down

To profit margins,

And political bargains,

For we have new gods now.

We no longer worship these gods of old,

Now, our gods can be bought and sold,

They are lines on a graph.

Budgets cut in half,

It is truly a wonder to behold.

Our new gods are not nearly so blatant,

Though their forms are somewhat adjacent,

Exploitation

And discrimination

Achieve the same effects, if you are patient.

Shunted off to the side are the gods of yore,

Now our world has far lesser wars,

But the new gods are kind,

So sign on the dotted line,

The possibilities are greater than ever before.


	3. Apocalypse Maybe

“You ever think,” Carl drawled, sitting on the edge of an abandoned building and gazing up into the starry night sky, “that maybe the zombies aren’t so different from us?”

“Yeah,” Alberto said from behind him, “running around with no purpose beyond violent survival, no regard for anything but their next meal, no plan except to continue on as they already are… it truly is a sobering outlook on the human condition.”

“No I mean they’re just dead people with a funky virus in them that makes em move,” Carl said, “cause that’s all they are really. Like, they still need nutrients and energy to walk around and stuff, they get hurt, I don’t know how it would work if they _don’t_ shit… I mean, when’s the last time you saw a zombie eat?”

Alberto paused and stared at Carl.

And stared.

And stared.

“Okay,” Carl said, raising his hands in appeasement, “I know what you’re thinking, but I mean like, not-”  
  
“Not _people_?” Alberto said, incredulous.

“Yes!” Carl said, “when’s the last time you ever saw a zombie eat something that wasn’t a person?”

“Oh, I can’t really remember,” Alberto shouted, cool sufficiently lost, “I was too busy running away in terror. You know, the thing you do when you see ZOMBIES THAT EAT PEOPLE?”

Carl waved his hands around like a maniac, the moonlight bouncing off his pale skin. “Okay, but hear me out! We need food to not die, yeah?”  
  
“Yes, that is normally how people work.”

“And zombies, like I said earlier, are just funky dead people. Like, just really angry dead people who hunger for human flesh and all that jazz, and maybe all dead people do but these ones finally have the power to go out and get it.”

“And what does this have to do with anything?”

“Well, since people need food to move and stuff, and zombies are just angry dead guys, wouldn’t zombies need food to live? Like, sure they eat people, but there’s not _that_ many people who get ate these days. Most of the folks still kickin know how to keep safe, and the zombies don't seem to eat anything else, sooooo… what do you think happens to em?”

Alberto paused. “I… I don’t know. Perhaps they would just… die? You are correct, they would require sustenance and don't have any sort of sustainable food source...”  
  
“And they get hurt all the time, too!” Carl said. “They all have torn clothes and cuts and shit, and they don't seem to care. That shit adds up, man!”

“Could zombies get infected?” Alberto pondered. “Not by the zombie virus, but by all the bacteria and viruses which have been infecting wounds for millennia. I don’t suppose why not. Unless they can zombify bacteria, which is a _terrifying_ prospect to consider.”

“Yeah, that’s some horror-story shit,” Carl said. “But like, when you combine the food and the injuries and shit, I don’t think we got that long before the zombies start dying off. Or at least until they stop moving cause they don’t got no juice in their muscles, same thing.”  
  
“It usually takes a week for a human to die of starvation, three days for dehydration but-” Alberto paused. “I’ve spent the past two days avoiding zombies, and never once have I seen them drink water.”

“Jesus, you’re right. Five bucks says a month tops, before the zombies ain't a problem no more.”  
  
“Maybe even earlier. Two weeks, maybe? They certainly operate beyond human limits, but they are _remarkably_ self-destructive.”

Carl got up to his feet, stretching and pulling out his old revolver. “Which means we don’t got that long until this here situation is over. Now, I’m not one to let a good apocalypse go to waste. You wanna find a truck, drive into the countryside, and shoot the shit at every zombie we come across?”  
  
Alberto looked up at his friend, newly acquainted as they may be. “Well, I suppose it will be quite a while until we get an opportunity like this… what the hell, why not?”

Twenty days later, Alberto Cassandro handed five dollars to Carl Pillman, as the South Carolina area was officially declared zombie-free.


End file.
